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Gloucestershire Business News

New multi-million-pound outlet shopping centre moves step closer

A £60 million shopping outlet and retail development creating nearly 1,000 jobs in Gloucestershire quietly took another step forward over the Easter holiday.

As the lucky among us holidayed the business behind the redevelopments fast transforming land near one of the county's motorway junctions were advancing some of their key plans.

Robert Hitchins won outline planning permission for the retail park - which include a garden centre and outlet centre, back in 2016 - despite Tewkesbury Borough Council's own officers advising against.

A report by property consultants Bilfinger, delivered for the 2016 decision, concluded the then proposal was "likely to have a significant adverse impact upon the health of Tewkesbury town centre and Gloucester city centre".

Sitting alongside a major housing scheme, also under the stewardship of Robert Hitchins - some 1,000 homes on at Ashchurch, immediately East of junction 9 of the M5 Motorway - the retail development is still without architectural detail.

But new documents filed with the borough council over Easter by the Boddington-based property experts seek to suggest how the 52.8 acre site north of Fiddington, south of the A46 and Ashchurch Industrial Estate, could look. And they also outline how the work will be phased.

"This document sets out the general design principles for the proposed development. It provides a set of illustrated design requirements, which will inform the detail and appearance of the buildings and landscape of the respective elements of the whole site," said one of the documents.

"A retail outlet centre differs from high street and shopping centre retail as the majority of facades are contained within an internal street and not immediately visible from the outside.

"The aim is to give the internal streets of the outlet centre a domestic village-like feel."

It adds: "The preferred strategy is for the selected garden centre operator to develop the building in line with their core brand and selling strategy."

New wooded areas would be introduced on the south west of the boundary "to build on the existing woodland of the site" aiding the "visual appearance" and "supporting noise reduction".

"Informal parkland will weave between and connect more formal recreational spaces" and "meadow and copse parkland will be used for information amenity purposes".

Cover image: Artist's image from an early Robert Hitchins planning document

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